Mortier Named Men’s Tennis Student-Athlete of the Year
Southland Conference
FRISCO, Texas – UIW’s Sebastian Mortier is the 2018 Men’s Tennis Student-Athlete of the Year, the league announced Tuesday with its all-academic teams. All yearly awards are presented by
Ready Nutrition.
Mortier was part of a Cardinals’ squad that claimed the 2018 Southland Conference regular-season championship, marking the first time in program and school history that UIW had won a Southland championship in any sport. The junior from Hanau, Germany, holds a 3.37 GPA studying biology. He earned all-conference first team accolades after a perfect 5-0 conference record in singles play at the No. 3 position. He was named Southland Player of the Week on April 17 after helping UIW clinch the No. 1 seed in the Southland Conference Tournament in its first season eligible since transitioning to Division I. He also kept a perfect record in doubles play during the conference season, combining with Southland Player of the Year, Gabriel Evans.
Abilene Christian slotted five selections between the two all-academic teams. Henry Adams is a first-team selection while Brad Gleason, Cole Lawson, Jonathan Sheehy and Hunter Holman are each second team picks.
Mortier’s teammate Joey Vatanadilok earned an automatic selection after being voted a Southland All-Conference First Team member and possessing a 3.14 GPA while majoring in kinesiology. Lamar’s Logan Powell is the lone player who is an automatic selection to the team for being selected to the CoSIDA Google Cloud All-District Team. Powell majored in psychology and kept a perfect 4.00 GPA.
Nicolas Kramer of New Orleans is the only other member on the all-academic first team with a 4.00 GPA, keeping the perfect average as a double major in accounting and finance. Lamar’s Sebastian Santibanez, a two-time all-academic selection, rounds out the top academic team.
Texas A&M-Corpus Christi’s Carlos Pedrosa and UIW’s Nedim Ahmic each garnered second team spots.
The All-Academic teams are voted on by a head coach, sports information director and academic/compliance staff member from each Southland Conference institution. Student-athletes must possess a 3.0 cumulative GPA, have completed one full academic year at the nominating institution and participated in at least 50 percent of the team’s competition to qualify for All-Academic selection. Nominees who were also named to the All-Conference First Team or CoSIDA Academic All-District team are automatically named Southland All-Academic.
The Southland Conference awards committee, which consists of one administrator from each of the 13 member schools, votes for the student-athlete of the year. The Southland student-athlete of the year award is presented to one student-athlete who achieves excellence in both academics and athletics. All nominees must have earned at least a 3.2 GPA on a 4.0 scale, and demonstrated athletics achievement for at least two years at the nominating institution.
2018 Southland Men's Tennis All-Academic Teams
Student-Athlete of the Year: Sebastian Mortier, UIW
First Team
| Name |
Class |
School |
Hometown |
Major |
GPA |
| Sebastian Mortier^*2 |
Jr. |
UIW |
Hanau, Germany |
Biology |
3.37 |
| Joey Vatanadilok* |
Sr. |
UIW |
San Antonio, Texas |
Kinesiology |
3.14 |
| Logan Powell* |
Sr. |
Lamar |
Amarillo, Texas |
Psychology |
4.00 |
| Nicolas Kramer2 |
Jr. |
New Orleans |
Munich, Germany |
Accounting/Finance |
4.00 |
| Henry Adams |
Sr. |
Abilene Christian |
San Antonio, Texas |
Accounting |
3.57 |
| Sebastian Santibanez2 |
Jr. |
Lamar |
Santiago, Chile |
Economics |
3.65 |
Second Team
| Name |
Class |
School |
Hometown |
Major |
GPA |
| Carlos Pedrosa2 |
So. |
A&M-Corpus Christi |
Sevilla, Spain |
Mechanical Engineering |
3.81 |
| Brad Gleason |
Sr. |
Abilene Christian |
Broken Arrow, Okla. |
Psychology |
3.69 |
| Cole Lawson |
Jr. |
Abilene Christian |
Spring, Texas |
Nursing |
3.70 |
| Jonathan Sheehy |
So. |
Abilene Christian |
Arlington, Texas |
Finance |
3.00 |
| Hunter Holman |
Sr. |
Abilene Christian |
Dallas, Texas |
Accounting |
3.51 |
| Nedim Ahmic |
So. |
UIW |
Tuzla, Bosnia & Herzegovina |
Computer Information Systems |
3.83 |
^Student-Athlete of the Year
*-Automatic Selection
2-Two-Time All-Academic Selection